Ballistics

What stops a bullet

Rounds go through thin cover and are stopped by thick cover. Each material is costed in centimeters of pine: a round passes a layer when that cost is less than what the round can push through, and the table names the weakest round that gets through a layer of the usual thickness.

A round can go through at most 2 layers, and it can still hit someone up to 60 m behind the cover. Of a shotgun blast, at most 4 pellets' worth gets through.

Solid materials are measured where the round strikes, within the thickness range; sheet materials always count as their usual thickness.

Ricochet is the chance that a pistol round skips off at a grazing angle; the chance falls to nothing at the angle in the last column. A ricochet keeps 30% to 60% of its damage, flies up to 45 m, and can hit anyone, including the shooter. It can skip 2 times indoors and 1 time outdoors.

Damage left after going through cover

This is the share of a standard round's damage that is left after it goes through one layer of each material at its usual thickness. A 0% means the round is stopped.

A round that gets through never does less than 12% of its damage.

Other loads carry more or less through cover than the standard round: armor-piercing x1.5, tracer x0.95, soft point x0.7, hollow point x0.6, birdshot x0.2 and a shotgun slug x6.

Engine blocks, bulletproof glass, roads, earth, ice and water stop every round.

Weapon build quality

How a gun was made sets how often it jams and how fast it wears out. Both figures multiply the numbers of the gun's class in the next table.

Weapon classes

These are the starting figures of each class of gun; a particular gun can differ, and its own page has its numbers. A lower spread is more accurate, and the jam and wear figures are for a factory-made gun in good condition before fouling and weather.

A stovepipe clears in 80% of the time it takes to clear a jam. Clearing gets up to 25% faster with the Firearms skill.

A cleaning kit holds 10 cleanings.

Jams by condition

A worn gun jams more. The multiplier applies to the gun's own jam chance at the condition where each name begins.

At 0% condition a gun kicks and sways 25% more and does 12% less damage; both grow steadily as it wears. A gun at 0% will not fire.

Field repairs can never wear a weapon's best possible condition below 35%.

Jams by fouling

Carbon and grit build up as you shoot, and a dirty gun jams more. A freshly cleaned gun jams half as often as its class figure, and some designs shrug off dirt better than others.

A fall in sand with a gun in your hands adds 10 points of fouling, mud adds 14 and a swim adds 4. Gun oil wipes 8 points off.

A suppressor fouls the gun x1.5 as fast and subsonic rounds x1.25 as fast.

What wears a gun and makes it jam

Weather and neglect multiply a gun's jam chance and wear it down. These multiply with the condition and fouling figures above.

Suppressors by weapon class

A suppressor makes a gun quieter, not silent. It takes decibels off the muzzle blast, which leaves the share shown of the distance the shot is heard at, but the shot is never quieter than the clatter of the gun's own action.

A supersonic bullet also cracks all along its path, and no suppressor can take that away: see the next table.

Subsonic rounds have no crack and are a further 10% quieter at the muzzle.

The crack and the brass, by caliber

The crack is how far away a suppressed shot of each caliber is still heard, because the bullet breaks the sound barrier. Calibers that are subsonic already have no crack, and some others have a subsonic load you can use instead.

Caliber	Crack heard to	Subsonic already	Has a subsonic load	Spent brass
12 gauge 00 buckshot	20 m	No	No	Shotgun Hulls
.45 ACP		Yes	No	.45 Brass
9x19mm Parabellum	30 m	No	Yes	9mm Brass
.357 Magnum	35 m	No	No	.45 Brass
.44 Magnum	40 m	No	No	.45 Brass
.50 Action Express	45 m	No	No	.45 Brass
7.62x39mm	55 m	No	Yes	Rifle Brass
5.56x45mm NATO	60 m	No	No	Rifle Brass
9x39mm subsonic		Yes	No	Magnum Brass
7.62x51mm NATO / .308	70 m	No	No	Magnum Brass
7.62x54mmR	70 m	No	No	Magnum Brass
.338 Lapua Magnum	85 m	No	No	Magnum Brass

Which guns drop their brass

Firing leaves spent casings that you can pick up and load again at a bench. Whether they land on the ground depends on the gun's action.

Casings gather in a pile within 2.5 m of where you fired, up to 60 to a pile, once you stop shooting for 2.5 seconds.

Anyone can pick a pile up. Your own piles come back to you if you stand still over them for 3 seconds. A pile lasts 45 minutes.

Handloaded rounds

Every round you load at a bench is a handload, and its grade comes from your Crafting skill. Factory rounds never misfire or squib; a handload does once in the number of rounds shown.

A misfire is a dud that you rack out. A squib leaves the bullet stuck in the barrel: clearing it takes 7 seconds and costs the gun 12% condition.

The Gunsmith perk counts as 15 more Crafting for the grade.